On His Recent Issue With the Mumps: “It was just a strange scenario,” Reigns said. “I was infected with the mumps and, like, I don’t know if we’ll be able to use this [footage]. Like, I wasn’t in any serious pain or anything. You have your obvious side effects and gland swelling and stuff like that. The only real pain I felt was like in my jaw and in my ears, but the main thing was the isolation. It’s such a rare virus that, hell, half the nurses didn’t even know what the mumps were because it’s so old school. Exactly, you get your vaccines at one [year old] and everything. I think when we were younger they didn’t do boosters at a certain age, so now they do it, and, regardless, my immune system wasn’t up to the task! I caught it and I was out for about three weeks. And the crazy part is that I was stuck in the hospital or in the hotel and to be in the hotel sucked, man.”

On What it Taught Him: “It reminds you how fragile everything is and as simple as one little thing like a freak occurrence like that can take you out of your life. It can take you out of your normal schedule, so for me, I mean, I’ve always been very thankful for health and it’s the little things, being able to wake up in your bed, and play with your kids, and be next to your wife, being able to kiss your kids, kiss them on the cheek. Yeah, I get yelled at for kissing the kids now!”

On Why He Was Pulled Off a WWE Tour Last Year: “It’s funny how people come up with, like, all these conclusions. Like, nobody knew what was going on with me,” said Reigns. “I’m not like [The] Miz where I announce it on every RAW. ‘He’s sick!’, ‘something happened!’, ‘he got in trouble!’, ‘oh no, he did it again!’ And then, no, like, I went home because I was having babies! We didn’t talk about it [publicly]. That was a year ago.”